Fund in Memory of
Grant Ignatius

Hi, my name is Grant Ignatius, I am 24 and a student at Winona State University Studying Business Administration and Sociology. In April 2010, while I was playing collegiate baseball I suffered a sudden cardiac arrest. I was revived and woke up out of a coma a few days later and didn't remember a thing. Luckily I didn't remember what happened and didn't have any traumatic memories of that event and I had no mental set back so I was very lucky to be alive and well. While in the hospital they gave me an ICD and four months later they performed a cardiac ablation procedure. They did genetic testing and were unable to find a definitive cause of why this happened. After doing the ablation they found some possible cardiomyopathy that could have occurred which could have caused an electrical problem within my heart and also extra PVC's that were present but there was still no true diagnoses. After going through this I went two and a half years living my life at 110%, doing all the things I wanted to and more with out even worrying about any heart problems or getting shocked by my device.

In December 1, 2012 I was out with my friends and started to feel pounding in my chest and almost passed out before I received my first shock which was extremely painful.. I had my friends drive my to the ER where I received shocks 20+ times in a matter of 2 minutes. I was in a smaller college town at the time so eventually they got my heart rate to a more stable rate and I was transferred to St. Mary's hospital in Rochester, MN. After a 4 day stay everything looked fine to the doctors and after a stress test which was nerve racking and went fine I was sent home.. While at home the mental pain was unbearable, they put me on anxiety and depression medications and I was slowly getting better. Six weeks later on Jan 18, 2012 I had an exercise test to see how my heart was doing and with in 5 minutes of hardly working hard I went in to VT which brought back all the feelings and fear that was so similar to the time that I was shocked so many times. My rate rate was very high but not high enough where my ICD was going to shock me.. but the fear I had was unexplainable. I was rushed me to the hospital from and even the medications they gave me could not get my heart rate back into a normal pace so they sedated me and gave me a shock to put the rhythm back to normal. The doctors recommeded that I had a sympathectomy to block addrenerel to the heart so I went through with that procedure. For a few days my heart rate was normal after the surgery and all of a sudden I went back into VT for no reason that was known, an emergency ablation for the next day was necessary to control my heart rate so I had to wait 24 hours with a heart rate of 135-150 while I was laying in a hospital bed. This psychologically was awful because of the feeling of the fast heart beat and how familiar it was to when I was shocked so many times 5-6 weeks before then..the PTSD was so mentally exhausting I can't even explain. The ablation which was done on Jan 25, of this year I believe stopped the rhythm and since then my heart hasn't gone back into the VT. I have been home for about a month now and have been going to cardiac rehab and other therapy to deal with the mental aspect of my circumstance. The uncertainty of not knowing if these feelings are dangerous or nothing at all makes it almost impossible to do what I want to do but I believe that in time and with the amazing doctors that I have at the Mayo Clinic, that I will be back to 100% faster then most and going through these extremely difficult circumstances that my experience in the end will make me an even stronger individual and I am looking forward to getting involved with this organization and helping others through what I have gained by my experiences.